Opinion Contributor

Can Joe Biden parlay veep role into plausible run?

If a sculptor ever decides to chisel a Mount Rushmore for vice presidents, Joe Biden’s image should be prominent. In an Oscar-winning performance for the ultimate supporting role, Biden started the year by brokering the bipartisan deal avoiding the “fiscal cliff.” Then he led the effort to develop the strictest gun control plan in the nation’s history. Much has been written about the president making history. But as the administration begins a second term on this inaugural week, Biden deserves recognition too.

The history of the vice presidency would have bet against him big time.

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The first vice president, legendary John Adams, regarded the office as among the most bizarre and least consequential ever devised. The third, Aaron Burr, had to hide out from prosecutors after killing a man in a gun fight. The seventh, John C. Calhoun, got so angry in office, he jumped parties four years later. The 13th, William R.D. King, failed to show up for Inauguration. No one got upset. The 27th, James Sherman, died while running for reelection; his party didn’t stop campaigning for even a day. The 32nd, John Nance Garner, famously said the office “wasn’t worth a warm pitcher of spit.” The 39th, Spiro Agnew, became the first national officeholder to resign in disgrace. The 44th, Dan Quayle, endured four years of national ridicule. Biden’s predecessor, Dick Cheney, relished his Rasputin image.

As a matter of constitutional law, the office of vice president has not changed for 226 years. Biden has endeavored to give the vice presidency a new stature for getting, then exercising, real authority. While this historic transformation is occurring in public view, it is still unappreciated.

The delegates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 forgot about the position after creating it. When President William Henry Harrison became the first commander in chief to die in office, the legal status of Vice President John Tyler remained unclear. “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” had changed American politics, the first sloganized campaign in the modern parlance. Still the question remained: Would the Virginian be merely the acting president or fully entitled to all privileges and powers attached to the Oval Office? President Tyler’s performance eliminated any doubts on the succession issue. But the vice presidency per se stayed a political appendix.